Local Solutions Support Center Expands Legal & State Political Expertise to Address Growing Harms of Preemption
COVID & efforts to confront racial injustice and white supremacy highlight the urgent need to center the voices of the people hurt most by preemption
WASHINGTON - The Local Solutions Support Center (LSSC) is expanding its legal and state expertise, ensuring that the national hub working to counter the abuse of preemption and strengthen local democracy is poised to effectively and nimbly aid the work of the many national, state, and local organizations combating preemption. Public Rights Project (PRP) will lead LSSC’s legal team in providing deep legal technical assistance to state and local advocates, building on the legal program pioneered over the last year by the National Employment Law Project (NELP). Dr. Francesa Weaks, Policy and Research Manager at the National NAACP, also will join LSSC in the new role of State Campaigns Consultant.
LSSC is also revamping its leadership structure, adopting a horizontal approach and ensuring space is held for the communities most directly affected by preemption -- often BIPOC, women, LGBTQ people, and workers in low-wage industries -- to have a direct role in setting strategy and allocating resources. A new National Preemption Steering Committee will engage a greater cross-section of advocates to help set priorities and identify trends. Katie Belanger, who has served as LSSC’s Deputy Director since 2018, will become Lead Consultant and work with LSSC’s state campaigns, communications and messaging, legal, and research teams. Kim Haddow, LSSC’s founding Director, will work with the team as a strategic adviser, focused primarily on research and messaging.
Belanger said:
“The COVID pandemic and the harms caused by generations of racism and white supremacy have put a painful spotlight on how the misalignment between state and local governments impacts people. We’ve seen it time and again over just the last year - policies ranging from paid sick leave, to housing security and eviction moratoriums, to minimum wage, are too often stifled by state legislatures. BIPOC, women, workers in low-wage industries, and LGBTQ people pay the price for this misuse of preemption. The need for proactive and responsive local government has never been more explicit, and the demands and prospects for reform are urgent and growing.”
The expansion and restructure of the team ensures LSSC is prepared to provide expertise and resources that match the urgency of the current preemption landscape: Weaks brings to the team an expertise in public health policy and health equity, a skillset critical to advocates working to fend off harmful preemption measures that undermine healthy families and healthy communities, and have a disproportionate impact on BIPOC communities. PRP’s long standing relationships with impacted individuals, community-based organizations, and local governments across the country will amplify and strengthen LSSC’s efforts to provide support and resources to the local advocates leading efforts to address preemption in their localities.
Local communities have lost power in every state legislative session since 2011. In the year ahead, advocates are preparing to face preemption efforts in areas that directly impact BIPOC, women, and workers in low-wage jobs disproportionately -- particularly efforts to preempt local decision making on matters of public health and police oversight and reform. In her new role as State Campaigns Consultant, Weaks will not only support individual efforts, she’ll also help amplify trends and best practices across coalitions, ensuring greater coordination of strategy and resources.
Weaks said:
“Preemption harms people across an array of quality of life issues, but the biggest impact right now is in public health and social determinants of health. When people are forced to work in a store where masks aren’t required because local protections are prohibited, when they can’t take paid sick leave because of the intervention of state lawmakers, when they can’t get basic assistance in keeping a roof over their family’s heads during an economic crisis - that all takes an enormous toll on health and well-being. I’m honored to support the efforts of the advocates who have been working to protect their communities during such an unprecedented time. We’re facing a daunting legislative landscape across many states, but I’m confident that our collective work can hold the line against egregious attempts to undermine local decision making.”
LSSC will continue to offer legal technical assistance to partners, now through a partnership with PRP and team leaders LiJia Gong and Jonathan Miller. PRP’s work will build off of the efforts originated by NELP and Laura Huizar. Huizar pioneered LSSC’s current structure for providing legal support to partners, developing new resources and providing direct technical assistance to the individuals on the ground shaping the legal strategy to combat preemption. Huizar is now returning to NELP, where in her new role as Immigrant Worker Justice Program Director, she will lead efforts to protect immigrant workers.
PRP Counsel LiJia Gong said:
“Local governments are on the frontlines of multiple crises, and they must be empowered to develop and enact innovative, locally tailored solutions to the problems facing their communities. In many instances, systemic racism and discrimination are perpetuated by a modern expression of white supremacy and minority rule: coercive preemption. Efforts to prevent localities from raising minimum wages and reforming police departments, for example, are often racist. Local leaders and advocates need the legal authority to ensure that they can act in the best interests of their communities, without the possibility of reprisal from state officials. PRP is honored to build on the strong work of NELP, and continue providing advocates and policymakers with the tools and guidance they need to best serve their communities.”
More of the tools and resources that LSSC and our partners have developed to help advocates address the misuse of preemption can be found at www.supportdemocracy.org. As the 2021 legislative sessions get underway across the nation, the LSSC team will be releasing new resources and tools to help raise awareness of preemption, and share best practices for how to successfully counter the misuse of preemption and advance home rule reform.